Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1034189
8 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 30 SEPTEMBER 2018 NEWS 'The stigma of abortion traumatised me as much as the procedure itself' RAISA GALEA IN 2005, aged 23, Samantha was already a single parent of a three-year-old girl. It was a tur- bulent phase in her life. In ad- dition to her parenting respon- sibilities, she was a second-year student at university, still living in her parents' house. Samantha was madly in love with a man, with whom she had been in a relationship for a little longer than a year. "Although he was not the father of my three-year- old", she tells me, "he was my first true love". Despite the love Samantha and her partner had for each other, their relationship was complicated, even tense at times. Previously a heroin addict, the man was freshly off therapy and was still on methadone, a sub- stitute for heroin. Before the relationship, his life was full of hardship and that left a deep mark on his character. The past addiction and the following therapy added fre- quent mood swings to the chal- lenges their relationship was facing. Samantha recalls that time as being "full of ups and downs, with more downs than ups". Still, she says they shared a profound spiritual intimacy and had a deep respect for each other in pretty much every situ- ation, except sex. When it came to intercourse, the mutual understanding was absent: wearing a condom was not an option for the partner, whereas she was unwilling to opt for birth control pills. To make matters worse, the partner routinely dismissed her warnings and followed no basic precautions to prevent preg- nancy. "We had a lot of arguments about it", says Samantha, "I was concerned I could get pregnant, but he 'reassured' me that, due